Account-based checkout

Abstract

The present invention leverages the account-creation process that necessarily precedes any account-based transaction. The process of creating an account is enhanced to include the pre-association of various “ID Factors” that can be employed in combination to identify that account. Permitted combinations of ID Factors are those that comply with the account provider's security policy. Subsequently, at the time of a transaction in which a customer desires to check out items, the customer need only present an acceptable combination (i.e., one which meets the provider's security policy) of the ID Factors which have been pre-associated with the customer's account. In one embodiment, such an account-identification mechanism is coupled with a product-identification mechanism to enable a flexible and secure automated self-checkout system.

1 . A method for checking out a plurality of items to a customer's account with a provider of goods and services, each item including an item identifier, the method including the following steps:
 (a) creating a customer account with a provider;   (b) associating one or more ID Factors with the customer account, including an ID Factor not otherwise affiliated with the customer account, wherein one or more combinations of the ID Factors facilitates identification of the customer account in accordance with a security policy of the provider;   (c) authenticating the customer account at the time of an account-based transaction at the physical premises of the provider, by recognizing one or more ID Factors presented by the customer, and verifying that at least one combination of those ID Factors satisfies the provider's security policy;   (d) recognizing the item identifier of one or more items to be checked out to the customer account, and associating those items with the authenticated customer account;   (e) altering the checkout state of each of the items to indicate that each item has been checked out; and   (f) verifying the checkout state of each item as the customer passes through a security gate before leaving the provider's premises, and sounding an alarm in the event that the checkout state of one or more items does not indicate that the item has been checked out.